 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poetry
Duane
Esposito
Diminish
Your smell reminds
me of the smell of
a palm wrapped in gauze,
the recovery you taught me,
& my own bottomless
history absent of reprisal.
Though memory recalls attention
to lips & the harshest of winters,
a smile in one dream widens another.
You are my air in any climate,
any terror, any time, & any
voice depends upon future.
You are the blast of light when something
remembered suddenly diminishes--
perhaps it was despair.
Perhaps it was you,
in size zero jeans standing
beside a tomb, uncertain.
Perhaps it was a dying tree
in a narrow park divided by sun,
strewn brains, & a hidden, small caliber gun.
Perhaps these things, once
remembered, now diminish
as Fall's no longer the chilly season,
& time's decay reflects the trees.
Is this clarity or distance,
& what's the difference?
As we get nearer to our wounds,
there's hardly room enough to know.